Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan has pleaded to the world and asked them to respond to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in his country due to civil war.
Khan plays for SunRisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League and he will be the key player for his country during the T20 World Cup in October-November, if the current civil war does not lets the team to participate.
"Dear World Leaders! My country is in chaos, thousand of innocent people, including children & women, get martyred everyday, houses & properties being destructed. Thousand families displaced. Don't leave us in chaos. Stop killing Afghans & destroying Afghanistan. We want peace. (sic)," tweeted Khan, who is one of the world's best leg-spinners, on Tuesday.
Afghanistan is witnessing a fierce battle between Taliban and Afghan national forces. Violence has escalated over the past few days with the Taliban reportedly sweeping the northern region of country.
Taliban forces advancing to Kabul
As of Wednesday, the Taliban have captured the key Afghan city of Pul-e-Khumri, 140 miles north of the capital Kabul, giving the insurgents control of a strategic road junction linking Kabul to the north and west, according to insurgents and local officials, the Guardian reported.
Two officials in the city told the Guardian it fell to Taliban after heavy fighting on Tuesday, with officials and security forces abandoning their compounds.
A Taliban spokesperson on Twitter also claimed the capture of the city, the capital of Baghlan province. Images on social media showed the Taliban's flag at city gates and insurgent fighters inside the city.
If confirmed, Pul-e-Khumri would be the eighth out of 34 provincial capitals captured by the hardline Islamist movement in less than a week, the report said.
The city's fall to the Taliban would be a massive blow to the Afghan government, threatening the remaining cities in the north of Afghanistan not already under insurgent control including Mazar-i-Sharif and Faizabad.
Earlier on Tuesday, a senior EU official warned that the Taliban's strategy in northern Afghanistan appeared to be to cut off the capital, Kabul, from forces to the north that could support it.
Biden's reaction
On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said he does not regret his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, noting that Washington has spent more than $1 trillion over 20 years and lost thousands of troops.
During the past two months the Taliban has rapidly expanded the territory it controls to about 65 per cent of the country, including a large proportion of rural areas. A third of the country's provincial capitals are under threat.
The Taliban military chief released an audio message to his fighters on Tuesday ordering them not to harm Afghan forces and government officials in territories they conquered.
There have been reports by civilians who have fled Taliban advances of heavy-handed treatment by the insurgents -- of schools being burned down and of repressive restrictions on women, the report said.
